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The sight of such a city, with its close-huddled roofs, arranged for the most part amphitheatre-wise above a picturesque harbour, and crowned by a glorious cathedral front with triple-arched Gothic doorways, belfry towers, and filigree spires, is a spectacle surely in every way the sublimest on earth.
It fronted the Plaza, and was a long, narrow building, flanked, as it were, by wings lower than the main apartment, and surmounted by a dome, in which were five or six bells. This dome or belfry was supported by pillars, and in the intervening openings were placed the bells. The roof was flat, and the dark green and gray moss clung along the sides.
But older even than this old hall is perhaps the bit of wall now built into the belfry of the parish church, and said to be a remnant of the original chapel dedicated to St. Ogg, the patron saint of this ancient town, of whose history I possess several manuscript versions. I incline to the briefest, since, if it should not be wholly true, it is at least likely to contain the least falsehood.
But the scourge returned many times; in 1539, in 1573, and in 1589 lightning fell on the new belfry. Then a century elapsed before the visitation was repeated; in 1701 the same spire was struck again. "It then stood uninjured till 1825, when a thunder-bolt fell and shook it severely on Whit Monday while the Magnificat was being chanted at Vespers.
The ungrateful rope was very prickly; it hurt me, but I held fast, and slowly, surely drew it down. Too slowly; there was not sound enough to frighten a bird out of the belfry, had one been there to listen; but Aaron, on his knees within his study, praying for the gift of healing, that he might restore sick souls, would hear.
"Go on down and rusticate with your relatives for the summer, and fly the bats in your belfry at the old moss-backs, while I am getting this Cincinnati and Gulf Stations commission under way. Then, when I can, I will come for you. Let's don't discuss the matter, and it's time I took you back to your hotel." Not a very encouraging tilt for my maiden lance. I've had a thought.
At the other end, farther up the river, on a rocky knoll open to all the winds, stood the meeting-house, old, two story, and full of windows, its gilded weathercock glistening in the sun. The bell in its belfry had been brought from France by Skipper Evans in the latter part of the last century.
All three said yes. "You took photographs?" "Certainly." "Then you know that our trenches pass under the bell-tower?" "Yes." "Very well. The wind is north. When the Boches enter our trenches they’ll try to gas our salient while the wind holds. But west winds are predicted after sunrise tomorrow. I’m going to get into the Nivelle belfry tonight with a sack of bombs.
The ascent to the Giralda is very long and very fatiguing; and we had to pause on the various landings and in the singular belfry in order that Miss Daguilar might recruit her strength and breath. As we rested on one of these occasions, in a gallery which runs round the tower below the belfry, we heard a great noise of shouting, and a clattering of sticks among the bells.
These sprinklers were filled by horse power. A chain, running through blocks attached to a solid upper framework, like the open belfry of an Italian monastery, dragged a barrel up a wooden track from the water hole to the opening in the sprinkler. When in action this formidable machine weighed nearly two tons and resembled a moving house.
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